How a Company’s Leadership Inspires Employees to Grow and Stay

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In today’s fast-moving work culture, job-hopping has become the norm. A recent survey from Career Sidekick found that 62% of professionals have left at least one job within their first year of employment. On an average, people switch roles every 2.73 years, and nearly half (42%) make a move within one to two years.

So, what’s pushing people out the door? It’s not just about a bigger paycheck. The top three reasons include finding a better opportunity that aligns with their goals and values, escaping a toxic work environment, and facing a lack of growth or learning in their current role. In short, people aren’t just chasing promotions; they’re seeking purpose, respect, and momentum in their careers.

Ramprakash Ramamoorthy, director for AI Research, and Mani Vembu, CEO of Zoho, shared with MIT SMR India, what the company’s leadership gets right to foster such long-term commitment.

Ramamoorthy, who began his career at Zoho as an intern and now leads its AI research wing, joked that he’s still in the “honeymoon phase”, despite being with the company for nearly 15 years. “What really works for me is the company’s grounded culture, there’s no unnecessary hype. There’s a steady stream of opportunities, you’re always growing and learning,” he said. 

This continuous learning culture, according to him, stems directly from Zoho’s leadership style: visionary yet humble, decentralized yet deeply involved when it counts. “I report directly to our co-founder and collaborate with our chief scientist and CEO. That level of access and mentorship is rare.”

More importantly, it’s a culture that encourages people to experiment, fail, and switch roles internally—all without switching companies.

“One of our computer vision leads used to be in pre-sales. He wanted to try development, so we gave him six months. Now he leads a team. Mobility here isn’t just vertical; it’s lateral and exploratory,” Ramamoorthy said. 

A Culture of Trust, Not Control

CEO Mani Vembu, who took over the reins from his brother, Zoho founder Sridhar Vembu, said that the culture of autonomy is very much by design. But the handover wasn’t a revolution; it was an evolution.

“Zoho has always had distributed leadership. Even when Sridhar was CEO, he focused on what he was passionate about and gave others full ownership of their domains. It’s this culture of fairness and freedom that allows us to run multiple experiments at once,” said Mani. 

Mani doesn’t pursue disruption for the sake of it, his leadership is intentional and focused. He believes in stability, continuity, and respect for what’s already working. “When I became CEO, I didn’t feel the need to change anything just to make a mark. If something’s functioning well, like R&D under Ram, why mess with it?”

This calm, almost egoless approach to leadership has ripple effects throughout the company. There’s no pressure to jump on trends or adopt tech just because it’s hot. 

Recently, Zoho introduced Zia LLM, an LLM trained entirely in-house for business-specific use cases, alongside automatic speech recognition (ASR) models in English and Hindi.

It also launched Zia Agent Studio, a no-code or low-code builder to create and deploy AI agents, and rolled out 25 prebuilt AI agents, some tailored for Indian business needs. 

Leadership as a Platform for Growth

Rather than chasing hypergrowth or over-promising on AI capabilities, both leaders stressed the importance of starting small and staying grounded. Whether it’s experimenting with AI internally before rolling it out to customers or focusing on solving tier-II and tier-III business problems, Zoho’s leadership thinks long-term.

“Today, features are marketed as products and products are disguised as companies. But unless your system of record is solid, your AI isn’t going anywhere. You need unified data, not hype,” Ramamoorthy said.

This systems-first mindset is reflected in Zoho’s broader approach to leadership: empowering teams to build foundationally strong and quietly innovative solutions.

Even their approach to scaling is refreshingly contrarian. “We had a campaign that said, ‘It takes time’. We don’t chase growth hacks. We solve long-term problems that will matter 20 years from now,” Mani said. 

So, as flashy startups come and go, Zoho’s leadership proves that durability can be a competitive advantage. In a world obsessed with speed and exits, they’ve chosen to build patiently, grow quietly, and lead thoughtfully.